Readercon, part The Next
NB: my computer is apparently not liking usernames, so please forgive the lack of linkiness below.
First things first...
Happy birthday, stealthmuffin!
A little more on Readercon:
The rooms were enormous, palatial, and featured white down-comforters and eight pillows per bed. I had a good bounce and used the ironing board, just because I could.
Highlights of Friday:
Reading by crowleycrow from an upcoming historical novel. There are those of us who can't get enough of his historical writing, fantasy or not. This one is set during WWII, at an aircraft plant, with lots of Rosie-the-Riveter female employees. Much fun was had with 1940s condom name brands. What price Merry Widows? Everybody gave the author a round of applause afterwards, and he looked really pleased.
Conversation afterwards:
Woman A: They used to market them in little tins with flip tabs on the side, like sardines.
Woman B: They still do.
A: And how would you know that, young lady?
B: By being a prurient fourteen-year-old.
There was a late-night Meet the Pros party where each author was given a sheet of stickers which each contained a line from the author's works. Each fan was given a sheet of waxed paper and sent round the crowd to collect a sticker from each author. I came in late, and I wasn't going to participate at all, but then I noticed that the professional writers were walking round the party trying to get rid of all their stickers so they could relax and have a glass of wine. I grabbed a sheet of paper and got collecting. Favorites were "We never meet" and "Joseph Merrick sank his perfect head into his perfect hands and wept for joy." I've got no idea of the authors--they stickered my paper and vanished into the melee. If these lines sound familiar to anybody, please enlighten me.
I drank half a glass of wine and reeled back to my room to pass into an alcoholic coma.
Highlight of Saturday afternoon was definitely Nine reading aloud from the third Ashes novel.
Things that I hadn't heard before, that absolutely delighted me: silent slightly creepy waiting-women, a touch like Cora and Clarice now that I think of it; talkative VERY creepy elderly bridegroom (?murder bridegroom?); re-entrance to the world of Margaret; "...but never that they candy maidenhead". Flirtation of a red-haired country woman and a traveling player.
Details I already like from hearing them at Boskone: three mummers' plays, my favorite being the one featuring the Man-Woman midwife. "Who's to milk the ducks?!" The prodigous births of an apple and a string of sausages. In another play, a moon painted on a round cake of ice. A tiny little boy watching the play unfold from the wings, and you know that it's going to haunt him his whole life and seem like magic and nightmares when he remembers it as a grown-up. (Sovay, it reminded me of the Revels performance you described to me last winter.)
I had an excellent lunch with Negothick in the Green Room, that forbidden sanctum. They have good Oreos. Later in the day, she, Nine, Rushthatspeaks, Sovay, Weirdquark, and at least eight other people whose usernames I can't find at the moment, took me off to eat supper at the Lemon Tree, a Thai restaurant with Georgian interiors. The conversation was so good I (almost) forgot to put food in my mouth, I was talking so much.
The Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition was an event like no other. The hall was packed.
Panelist: Round One!
Entire audience: DING!
The panelists read part of a paragraph of terrible prose, and then several different endings. The audience's duty was to guess which was the original author's ending. Craig Shaw Gardner was by far the best reader (and so cute I could scream). The best bad prose of the evening came from Lionel Fanthorpe's March of the Robots:
"Strange metallic things; things that were alien to the soft green grass of earth. Terrifying things, steel things; metal things; things with cylindrical bodies and multitudinous jointed limbs. Things without flesh and blood. Things that were made of metal and plastic and transistors and valves and relays, and wires. Metal things. Metal things that could think. Thinking metal things..."
First things first...
Happy birthday, stealthmuffin!
A little more on Readercon:
The rooms were enormous, palatial, and featured white down-comforters and eight pillows per bed. I had a good bounce and used the ironing board, just because I could.
Highlights of Friday:
Reading by crowleycrow from an upcoming historical novel. There are those of us who can't get enough of his historical writing, fantasy or not. This one is set during WWII, at an aircraft plant, with lots of Rosie-the-Riveter female employees. Much fun was had with 1940s condom name brands. What price Merry Widows? Everybody gave the author a round of applause afterwards, and he looked really pleased.
Conversation afterwards:
Woman A: They used to market them in little tins with flip tabs on the side, like sardines.
Woman B: They still do.
A: And how would you know that, young lady?
B: By being a prurient fourteen-year-old.
There was a late-night Meet the Pros party where each author was given a sheet of stickers which each contained a line from the author's works. Each fan was given a sheet of waxed paper and sent round the crowd to collect a sticker from each author. I came in late, and I wasn't going to participate at all, but then I noticed that the professional writers were walking round the party trying to get rid of all their stickers so they could relax and have a glass of wine. I grabbed a sheet of paper and got collecting. Favorites were "We never meet" and "Joseph Merrick sank his perfect head into his perfect hands and wept for joy." I've got no idea of the authors--they stickered my paper and vanished into the melee. If these lines sound familiar to anybody, please enlighten me.
I drank half a glass of wine and reeled back to my room to pass into an alcoholic coma.
Highlight of Saturday afternoon was definitely Nine reading aloud from the third Ashes novel.
Things that I hadn't heard before, that absolutely delighted me: silent slightly creepy waiting-women, a touch like Cora and Clarice now that I think of it; talkative VERY creepy elderly bridegroom (?murder bridegroom?); re-entrance to the world of Margaret; "...but never that they candy maidenhead". Flirtation of a red-haired country woman and a traveling player.
Details I already like from hearing them at Boskone: three mummers' plays, my favorite being the one featuring the Man-Woman midwife. "Who's to milk the ducks?!" The prodigous births of an apple and a string of sausages. In another play, a moon painted on a round cake of ice. A tiny little boy watching the play unfold from the wings, and you know that it's going to haunt him his whole life and seem like magic and nightmares when he remembers it as a grown-up. (Sovay, it reminded me of the Revels performance you described to me last winter.)
I had an excellent lunch with Negothick in the Green Room, that forbidden sanctum. They have good Oreos. Later in the day, she, Nine, Rushthatspeaks, Sovay, Weirdquark, and at least eight other people whose usernames I can't find at the moment, took me off to eat supper at the Lemon Tree, a Thai restaurant with Georgian interiors. The conversation was so good I (almost) forgot to put food in my mouth, I was talking so much.
The Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition was an event like no other. The hall was packed.
Panelist: Round One!
Entire audience: DING!
The panelists read part of a paragraph of terrible prose, and then several different endings. The audience's duty was to guess which was the original author's ending. Craig Shaw Gardner was by far the best reader (and so cute I could scream). The best bad prose of the evening came from Lionel Fanthorpe's March of the Robots:
"Strange metallic things; things that were alien to the soft green grass of earth. Terrifying things, steel things; metal things; things with cylindrical bodies and multitudinous jointed limbs. Things without flesh and blood. Things that were made of metal and plastic and transistors and valves and relays, and wires. Metal things. Metal things that could think. Thinking metal things..."